Aoraki Polytechnic is forecasting enrolments could be down by 19 per cent at year-end and it is facing a loss of $1.3 million.

Finance reports for the polytechnic for the six months ended June 30, showed a shortfall of 292 students on 1533 budgeted enrolments. Another 94 students studied as international and alternatively funded students.

By year-end (December 31), enrolments were forecast to be down by 697 fulltime equivalent students, which was a concern, chief executive Kay Nelson said.

"The shortfall of 697 is in some part due to a timing issue of enrolments in progress and we expect a reasonable percentage of them by year end.

"However, despite our best efforts, we did miss our February target by some 200 fulltime students. We are still working very hard to achieve as many of the remaining efts [equivalent fulltime students] as possible."

In 2011, the polytechnic had its first loss in several years and a reduction in government funding of $4.1m which had put pressure on the institution.

Due to changes in funding, the polytechnic had moved from short-term courses to encouraging younger, local students achieving higher level qualifications.

"We are very dependent on our local community choosing Aoraki Polytechnic for their study.

"We are entirely funded on the amount of students who decide to study with us and have worked very hard over the last two years to provide programmes of study that will attract and encourage our learners to stay at home and study," Ms Nelson said.

"We had an ambitious target for the 2012 year and we are very disappointed not to have achieved that thus far. We have continued our stakeholder engagement work and our secondary school liaison in order to ensure everyone is aware of what we have to offer.

"We are very committed to providing high quality vocational education to the Aoraki region and the support of the community is vital for that."

The drop in enrolments had been felt financially. The polytechnic had budgeted for a surplus of $740,000 but was now forecasting a loss of $1.3m.

"We are very disappointed with the current position. The provisional figures were calculated on the reduced number of efts (some 200) which is placing pressure on the forecasted end-of-year result.

"We are working hard to achieve the remaining efts and control costs."

- © Fairfax NZ News